


All the Anger That They Eat

by ClawR



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: "hurt/recovery" is probably more accurate, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Therapy, but only if you really really squint, if you really squint you might find references to suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClawR/pseuds/ClawR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Tony would’ve thought, now that the other shoe had finally dropped, that he would be able to stop looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t. He just moved on to waiting for the </i>other<i> other shoe.</i></p><p>Tony agrees to see a therapist for his, you know, fairly obvious issues. No one is more surprised than he is. Written pre-<i>Avengers</i>, but remarkably canon-compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Anger That They Eat

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "What About Everything?" by Carbon Leaf. Written in response to [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/1854.html?thread=314686#t314686) at avengerkink. The prompter asked for a mature, thoughtful, and respectful fic, and I've tried my best to deliver that. However, I'm not a psychologist, I do not have PTSD, and I've never been in sustained therapy. I have also taken occasional liberties with fact for the sake of narrative convenience. For an incredibly over-extensive review of the medical/clinical aspects of the fic, see the end notes.
> 
> Edit: A year and a half after posting, it finally occurs to me that the use of "Back in Black" at the beginning of Iron Man was probably _not_ diegetic. Well, too late to change now. (Plus, I think I come out on top here, because against all odds, Tony having to pull over when he has a panic attack while driving is now _actually canon_.)

There was a lot of fucking sand in California. Malibu sand didn’t really _look_ like Afghanistan sand, but sometimes it smelled like it, especially when you got to the drier parts of the beach, away from the water and the seaweed and the dead fish.

One day, about two weeks after he got back to the States, Tony opened one of the windows in his house, and the breeze blew in the smell of sand. It was the strangest thing, like film exposed twice, or like two voices speaking out of sync. He could still see Pepper and hear her talk about shareholders. But he could also see burlap sacks of rice, feel the heat of the sun through a metal suit, hear gunfire and Yinsen, “This was always the plan…”

The breeze died down. “JARVIS, close the window,” Tony said. Pepper hadn’t noticed. Or if she had, she thought it was his usual failure to pay attention to anything bureaucratic, and not a flashback.

It could only have been a flashback. Strange, really. He’d hardly spent any time in the sand. Most of his time had been spent in the cave, where it smelled like cold and damp, cooking fires and molten iron.

“…and you’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?” Pepper said.

“Eh, let the shareholders stew a little. That’s what you do to prunes, right?” 

Tony took his leave, then, and holed himself up in his workshop. It was better that Pepper not know. She and everyone else already doubted his decision to stop making weapons, and if they found out he was having flashbacks, well, it wouldn’t matter that halting weapons production was the right thing to do. It would always seem like the result of his instability.

Tony would just avoid the beach from now on. He didn’t like it that much, anyway.

* * *

A week later, he caught a whiff of sand walking in the front door. His fingertips tingled. He couldn’t breathe. It was entirely possible that he was going to throw up. Tony ducked into the nearest room – a rarely-used den with uncomfortable furniture – and stayed there until he was presentable again.

* * *

It wasn’t just sand that caused flashbacks and panic attacks. But that was okay. Tony didn’t like baths all that much either. Or swimming pools. Or hot tubs.

* * *

It wasn’t just flashbacks, either. Working on a project, knowing perfectly well where he was, not seeing or hearing or smelling anything but what was there, Tony would still look over his shoulder. First every few hours. Then every half hour or so. When it got to be every few minutes, Tony started working with his back to a corner, or at least never to the glass doors.

More than anything else, Tony hated himself for that fear. He _knew_ nothing was sneaking up behind him. For one thing, JARVIS would warn him if that happened. It didn’t matter. He dreaded the other shoe dropping, dreaded it like a final he hadn’t studied for, like the horror movie monster hiding behind the door, like he dreaded death in the moments late at night when he couldn’t make himself forget that it was coming. Tony wasn’t sure what the other shoe was, but he knew he was afraid of it.

Around other people, Tony could make himself act mostly normal. But he never _felt_ safe, unless he was in the suit.

* * *

Things got better. Things got worse. Obadiah kind of fucked him over. Tony would’ve thought, now that the other shoe had finally dropped, that he would be able to stop looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t. He just moved on to waiting for the _other_ other shoe.

Then there was the added media pressure. Now that he was Iron Man, and all. Tony had chosen that pressure. He had no one to blame but himself. And it was good, in some ways. More scrutiny meant that Tony had to work at acting normal more of the time. Normal was good.

And if one night, when Pepper dropped a plate unexpectedly, the noise drove fear through him like a nail, and he was off the couch and in a fighting stance before he even had a chance to think?

And if he was dying?

Well, you couldn’t have everything.

* * *

It kind of went like that for a while. Occasional flashbacks and panic attacks; constant, base-level fear; and a new sense of distrust in people, because fuck. Obadiah. So Tony drank more than usual, and said worse things than usual, because why the fuck not?

And then suddenly, he wasn’t dying. And he still couldn’t care.

* * *

“Tony, we need to leave now, if we’re going to make our reservation.”

Tony didn’t look up from the gauntlet he was fine-tuning. He knew Pepper was there. He’d heard her come in. He’d seen her.

“They’ll hold it for us,” he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pepper approach.

“It would be a lot more polite not to make them,” Pepper said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been polite. Might be kinder not to shock them by starting now.”

Tony stared at the gauntlet, trying to bring back the concentration he’d had before Pepper showed up.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He grabbed it and wrenched it away from him, leaping out of his chair at the same time. Halfway up, he thought, _It’s only Pepper_ , but by the time he was in control of his body again, he was standing, hands out in front of him, pushing Pepper away.

“Tony…” Pepper stared at him. She held the hand she’d used to touch his shoulder close to her chest.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

Pepper blinked and looked at her arm, then dropped it, as though she was surprised to find it where it was. “No, I don’t think so.”

Was she telling the truth? Knowing Pepper, probably. But still. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Tony,” Pepper said again. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t think I want to go to dinner tonight,” Tony said. Actually, the very thought of stepping out of the house without the suit was making his skin crawl. And not a single goddamn thing – not even a night out with Pepper – was appealing enough to make him try. “Rain check?”

“Okay,” Pepper said, entirely too fucking gently. “How about we spend the night in?”

Tony thought about that. They could watch a movie, order in. Talk about the company, talk about the suit. Make fun of the idiots on television. Go to bed.

He didn’t want to do that. Any of it. It sounded _exhausting_.

“I think I’m gonna work on the suit tonight,” he said.

* * *

Somehow or other, someone decided Tony was sane enough to work for the Avengers. And he agreed, because what was he alive for, if not to save people?

He did good work. He was always good, in the suit. It was everything else that was falling apart. Tony’d thought things were bad when he first got back from Afghanistan. And they had been. But they were worse now, which was fucking stupid, because shouldn’t time make things _better_?

He’d stopped sleeping. Not because of nightmares; he just couldn’t fall asleep. On the other hand, sometimes he found himself sitting in his workshop, staring at a part on the table, unable to summon the energy to reach out and _do_ something with it.

He didn’t go to the beach. He didn’t go swimming. He took showers, but he hated them. He didn’t eat rice or drink tea. He didn’t let anyone – fucking _anyone_ – touch his chest. He walked around in a kind of haze of unspecific fear, his stomach sour, the back of his neck itching.

People knew, he was pretty sure. Pepper _definitely_ knew. She’d tried to talk to him about it a few times, but he ignored her and deflected her, and threw out the therapists’ business cards she left around for him. None of this was very fair to her. Tony knew she was having a hard time with her crazy, asshole boyfriend. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

Tony imagined himself in a psychologist’s office, talking about what had happened to him. The thought made him want to take a shower, or curl up under the covers and never come out. A therapist wasn’t going to make him better. There was no making him better. This was his life, now. And he had to live it, because he owed a debt he couldn’t repay any other way.

* * *

One morning, everyone was hanging out in the Avengers mansion’s kitchen. Seriously, everyone. Clint, Bruce, Natasha, Rogers, Thor, even Pepper, who was in town on a business trip. Tony was drinking coffee and catching up with Pepper. Bruce, Natasha, and Rogers were playing cards, which Tony felt should be a strictly after-dark occupation.

Clint was introducing Thor to AC/DC. “I like this music,” Thor kept saying. Tony mostly tuned it out. He didn’t even really hear the music at all, until the song changed.

_Back in black,_  
I hit the sack.  
I’ve been too long,  
I’m glad to be back. 

Tony’s attention snapped to the other side of the room, and—

The boy in front of him fumbles with a camera. A huge explosion rocks the Humvee. Everyone yells. The girl soldier steps out of the car. She goes down. Bullets fly. Camera boy leaves. Tony pleads with the last soldier for a gun. The last soldier yells. Bullet holes appear in the doors and windows. The last soldier slumps against the Humvee. Tony stumbles out the door. Explosions ring in the air. Tony smells sand. Tony smells blood. Tony smells gunpowder. Tony—

Pepper’s face filled his whole field of vision. “Tony,” she said, softly, but with an edge. Like she was worried out of her mind, but didn’t want to upset him.

Tony blinked. It wasn’t just Pepper, now he looked. She was closest to him, but everyone in the kitchen had gathered around the counter where he and Pepper had been talking. The cards lay face-up on the table. Someone had turned off the music.

“Tony,” Pepper repeated.

“Yeah?” he said.

Pepper sobbed. She controlled it well, though; it almost sounded like a sigh. “You wouldn’t answer,” she said. “You were just staring.”

She must have been saying his name for a while. How long? He had no idea. He’d been somewhere else entirely. His flashbacks didn’t usually work like that. Usually he stayed present, at least a little.

Everyone was still staring at him. Even Natasha, who Tony honestly couldn’t believe cared enough to pay attention.

Tony couldn’t feel his legs. He grabbed the counter to steady himself. His hand was shaking. He wasn’t quite in control of himself. He still wasn’t quite there at all. The whole world was clear and distant. Part of his brain seemed to have gone missing.

“What?” he said. “You never saw a guy have a flashback?”

No one spoke. Tony pushed past them and walked unsteadily to his workshop.

* * *

Of all people, it was fucking _Rogers_ who came after him. Sure, Tony and Captain America weren’t constantly at each other’s throats now, the way they were in the beginning, but they weren’t exactly _buddies_.

Tony watched Rogers walk down the steps to his basement workshop. He’d copied the glass-doors aesthetic from his Malibu house. Yeah, people could see him, but he could see them.

Rogers stepped confidently up to the door, looked Tony in the eye, and knocked. Tony rolled his eyes and got up to let him in.

“What, Pepper got lost between here and the kitchen?” Tony said as Rogers stepped into the workshop.

“No. She wanted to come, but I convinced her to let me. I can go get her, if you like.” Three steps into the room, Rogers foundered, looking around like he was trying to figure out where to go. Sometimes, if Tony looked hard, he could still see the scrawny dork hiding in Captain America’s body. Tony took pity on him.

“Nah. Sit down, as long as you’re here.” He led Rogers over to the sitting area, making sure to take the seat facing the door for himself. Fuck. Honestly, he was glad Pepper hadn’t come. He didn’t know if he could handle someone so openly sympathetic right now.

“So,” Tony said, when they were seated. “Say what you came here to say.”

“You have PTSD, and it would do everyone a lot of good if you saw a therapist,” Rogers said.

Tony leaned back in his chair, playing at nonchalance. “That’s mighty open-minded for a World War II boy. Shouldn’t you still be calling it ‘shell shock?’”

“They had a section on it in one of my re-integration manuals,” Steve said, without a trace of irony. How utterly irritating.

“Did one of your manuals give you a psychology degree? Or are you just that confident in your skills as an armchair diagnostician?” Tony glanced pointedly at Rogers’ seat: an old, upholstered armchair.

“It’s just a guess. You can take it or leave it,” Rogers said. “But you should probably take it.”

“And why is that?”

“Because whether or not I’m right about the PTSD, you’re obviously incredibly unhappy. And you don’t have to be.”

The thing was, Rogers was right. Of _course_ it was fucking PTSD. Tony had known that from the beginning.

“Maybe I’d rather be unhappy than talk to some shrink,” Tony said. Fuck. He shouldn’t have said that. That was admitting he was unhappy.

“Maybe you’d rather save face than do the right thing,” Steve said.

“And of course, if you say something’s the right thing, it must be,” Tony said.

Rogers rolled his eyes, which Tony was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to do at an intervention. “It’s not the right thing because I say it is. It’s the right thing because it will make _everyone’s life better_. Yours. Mine. Pepper’s.”

Tony remembered Pepper cradling her hand to her chest and felt suddenly sick with guilt. If he’d been able to, he’d have decked himself. Given himself a really good black eye.

All the same, he _really_ didn’t want to go to therapy. “Be that as it may, I’m pretty sure Fury’s not going to be cool with me spilling S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets to some civilian with bifocals. And trust me, my trauma is _classified_.”

Rogers laughed. All in all, it was a pretty fucking infuriating time for him to grow a sense of humor. “You’re really stretching for excuses, aren’t you? S.H.I.E.L.D. has its own therapists.”

“Of course they do,” Tony said.

“Of course they do,” Rogers agreed. “I know Bruce sees a guy.”

“He does?”

“He turns into a giant, raging, unstoppable monster whenever he gets angry. Yes, he sees a therapist.”

Well, that was unexpectedly dry. “Ah,” Tony said.

“I could get his number for you,” Rogers said.

“Nah,” Tony said. “I’m not _that_ much of a coward. I’ll ask.”

* * *

Two days later, Tony sat beside a table of magazines in the most modernly decorated waiting room he’d ever seen. Seriously. It looked like someone had broken off a chunk of his Malibu living room and flown it to New York.

The copy of _Time_ magazine on the coffee table had his picture on the cover. The world was a strange fucking place.

Tony drummed his fingers on his knee. If he had to wait any longer, he was going to leave. This had all been a terrible idea. Why the hell had he listened to _Rogers_ , for God’s sake?

The office door opened, and an unassumingly attractive man in his mid-thirties stuck his head out. “Mr. Stark?”

Tony held up the copy of _Time_. “That’s me.”

“I’m ready for you,” said the therapist. Samson. Dr. Leonard Samson.

“So you _are_ the doctor,” Tony said, leaping to his feet. “I thought you might be the rent boy receptionist or something. You don’t _look_ like a therapist.”

“Don’t I?” said Samson. He stepped aside so that Tony could enter his office. It was small and impersonal: a desk, an assortment of chairs and sofas, a full bookshelf. It smelled heavily of coffee and, for some reason, chalk dust. Much more fitting than the waiting room.

“Therapists should be old, female, or both. And if they’re not, they should at least have a beard.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Samson said. He swept his arm across the room. “Take a seat anywhere.”

That _had_ to be a test. Tony took a stained leather armchair that looked away from the door. His neck started itching almost immediately, but it wasn’t as though he could change seats now. Samson didn’t give any sign that he’d read anything into Tony’s choice of seats. He sat down on the loveseat across from Tony and crossed his legs. Which was at least in-character.

“Do you prefer Mr. Stark or Tony?” Samson asked.

“Seeing as how I’m going to be spilling my guts to you, why don’t we go with Tony?”

“Wonderful. You can call me Leonard. Or Dr. Samson. Whichever you’re more comfortable with.”

“If I’d made you call me Mr. Stark, would I still get to call you Leonard?”

Samson smiled. “If it made you comfortable. Now, Tony, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

Tony hadn’t thought that someone could be more irritatingly earnest than Rogers. “Well, evidently I’m compulsive, self-destructive, and narcissistic, so take your pick.”

Samson laughed, which made Tony like him more. _Slightly_ more. “Yes, I’ve read your file. But Agent Romanoff was making a field assessment, not a clinical one. That was about your job. This is about you. What have _you_ been experiencing that’s brought you here?”

What an excellent fucking question. Direct. Specific. Time to ‘fess up or get out. Tony played around with the words inside his mouth. They were really much safer in there.

“Flashbacks,” he said. “Hypervigilance. Depression.”

Samson nodded. “What a refreshingly clinical answer.”

“Dr. Do-Good, that was _sarcasm_ ,” Tony said. How fun!

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Tony smirked and propped his feet up on the wooden coffee table between him and Samson. The man deserved a reward. “Some things…remind me of other things. Afghanistan, mostly. I smell sand, and suddenly I’m back in…” Yeah, no, he wasn’t going into that much detail. “Well, anyway, I’m back there. I’ve been having trouble falling asleep. I’m…afraid, a lot of the time. Like something’s about to happen at any moment.”

Speaking of which, it was becoming very, _very_ difficult not to look over his shoulder. His whole back ached with the feeling of _something behind him_.

“Is something wrong?” Samson asked, leaning back to match Tony’s pose.

Probably the best thing to do at this point would be to tell the truth and move to a different chair. After all, it was pretty clear that Samson already knew something was up. But Tony had never been known for his good judgment.

“Yes,” he said. “This chair is ergonomically atrocious. What, are you a chiropractor, too? Trying to get your clients to pay you twice?”

“You’re not paying me, S.H.I.E.L.D. is,” Samson said.

Tony ignored him and jumped up. “I insist we switch seats!”

Tony had always been good at making people so uncomfortable that they did what he wanted. Samson didn’t seem uncomfortable, but he did get up and move to Tony’s chair, so it probably counted as a win. Tony settled into the loveseat and felt the ache in his back fade.

“Perfect,” he said, replacing his feet on the coffee table. “Where were we?”

“You were explaining that you’re always afraid that something’s going to happen,” Samson said.

Tony deliberately overlooked any possible double meaning there might be in that sentence. “Ah. Yes, well, there’s that. I also startle a lot easier than I did before. Little things make me jump. Like I’m always _this_ close to a fight. And I’m tired. Not just because of not sleeping. Just, overall tired. And I’m…unhappy.” Which might have been the hardest part to admit.

“Well, not to rush to judgment, but that sounds like post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“It _does_ , doesn’t it?” Tony said. “Hm.”

“I take it you’re familiar with the diagnostic criteria,” Samson said.

Tony counted off on his fingers. “Experienced, witnessed, _and_ was confronted with an event involving actual _and_ threatened serious injury _and_ loss of life. Check. Response involved fear, helplessness, and horror. Check. Recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event. Check. Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were reoccurring. Check. Intense psychological distress at cues that resemble an aspect of the traumatic event. Check. Physiologic reactivity upon exposure to cues that resemble an aspect of the traumatic event. Check. Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma. Check. Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma. Check. Sense of foreshortened future. Check. Difficulty falling or staying asleep. Check.”

He’d run out of fingers, so he started over again. “Irritability or outbursts of anger. Check. Hypervigilance. Check. Exaggerated startle response. Check. Duration of the disturbance is more than one month. Check. Disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. _Check_.”

Tony set his hand down on the armrest and stared coolly at Samson.

“That’s an excellent memory you’ve got there, Tony,” Samson said. “Well, there are several treatment options for PTSD. To begin with, there’s a wide variety of effective anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drugs…”

Tony cut him off. “No. No drugs. I rely on my brain for my work. I rely on my brain for my _life_. I’m not letting some pill that was safety-tested by a pharmaceutical company employee with a chimpanzee’s understanding of statistics fuck it up.”

“I think you’re rather overstating the case,” Samson said. “Medication, properly administered, can be very helpful in the treatment of anxiety and depression. But I respect your concerns. There are plenty of other options.”

“Such as?”

“Well, we could try traditional talk therapy, but I doubt you would find it particularly effective. I think you’d probably be more comfortable with some form of cognitive behavioral therapy or EMDR.”

He knew he shouldn’t ask, but Tony had always been a sucker for acronyms. “EMDR?”

“Eye-motion desensitization and reprocessing,” Samson said. “It’s kind of like CBT or exposure therapy, but it’s a little more involved.”

“How so?”

“The basic idea is that you think of images that you associate with negative feelings and beliefs. Then you concentrate on those images and feelings and beliefs while undergoing some kind of bilateral stimulation – typically moving your eyes from side to side. Over time, we try to replace the negative beliefs with positive ones, until the images are no longer distressing.”

Tony laughed. “No offense, but that sounds really fucking weird.”

“No offense yourself,” Samson said, “But that’s a fairly typical reaction. Partly because nobody’s totally sure how or why it works. It has lower drop-out rates than traditional exposure therapy, probably because the exposure is shorter in duration and accompanied by a distraction. There may be some other process at play, but we don’t know yet. Anyway, it’s an option. And you don’t have to do just one thing. These therapies can all be effective in combination.”

“How effective are we talking?” Tony asked.

Samson uncrossed his legs and recrossed them in the other direction. “I think a better question to start with would be, ‘What do you want to get out of therapy?’”

“I want to not have PTSD anymore,” Tony said. He put a clear, unspoken _duh_ at the end.

“Meaning a complete cessation of all symptoms?” Samson said, apparently unoffended.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t have a straightforward answer to your question. I can’t promise a particular therapeutic outcome. Even people who more-or-less overcome PTSD often have some low-level residual symptoms. But it can get better. It can get a _lot_ better. And my job is to help it get better. But I can only do that if you work with me.”

Tony weighed what Samson had said. Low-level symptoms sounded a hell of a lot better than what he had now.

Then, Tony weighed Samson himself, sitting there in Tony’s abandoned chair with his legs crossed and his eyes trained on Tony. He seemed intelligent. And Tony didn’t use that word lightly.

“Okay,” Tony said. “I can do that.”

* * *

When Tony got home, Pepper was in the living room, learning from Natasha how to throw an opponent over her hip.

“Oh, hey!” she said, breathless, from the floor. She nodded at Natasha, who nodded back and left the room with hardly a glance at Tony.

“Hey,” Tony said.

Pepper scrambled up from the floor and onto the couch. She was, improbably, wearing a business suit. I must have been an impromptu hip-throwing lesson, then.

“How was it?” Pepper asked.

Tony considered his answers and opted for honesty. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

* * *

Therapy was odd. Tony spent a lot more time talking about his _feelings_ than he had ever, ever expected to in his life. But he also spent a lot more time talking about breathing techniques than he’d ever expected to in therapy. He started out the first few sessions snappish and uncomfortable – more snappish and uncomfortable than he was the rest of the time, anyway – but after a while, he eased into it. There was something comfortingly systematic about the whole thing. He and Samson were just… working together to fix a broken system.

Samson probably would have disapproved of that metaphor. Tough for Samson.

“What are you having trouble with, right now?” Samson asked at the beginning of their fourth session. They were sitting at the desk this week. That was, Tony was sitting behind Samson’s desk, and Samson was sitting in the chair the client usually sat in. “Highest salary in the room gets the desk,” Tony had said when he took the seat.

“Flashbacks,” Tony answered. He’d had three in the past week – an absurdly large number. They were usually a lot rarer than that. Before last Friday, he’d only had five in the whole time since Afghanistan. “They used to have to be triggered by something, but lately they can happen on their own.”

“Are all the flashbacks to the same event, or do they change?”

“They’re all to the same event,” Tony said. “The ambush in the Humvee.”

Samson tapped his pen against his clipboard. “How do you feel before the flashbacks?”

“Before?”

“Yes, before,” Samson said. “Is there a pattern to the feelings or thoughts you have before the flashbacks?”

Tony drew a fork-sized rake back and forth through the miniature Zen garden on Samson’s desk. The first flashback this week had happened about an hour after Tony learned about a cache of Stark weapons in terrorist hands. It had happened in the middle of his planning the mission to destroy them. The second had been after a particularly strained Avengers meeting on Tuesday. It had been strained because he’d been particularly on-edge that day, and he’d snapped at Rogers _probably_ more than the man deserved. Not that Tony would ever admit that. The third had happened, terrifyingly, while Tony was driving. Luckily, it wasn’t like the AC/DC flashback – he hadn’t had another one like that – so he’d maintained awareness of his surroundings. He’d used one of Samson’s breathing exercises to keep relatively calm until he could pull over to a yellow curb. What had he been thinking about? He’d been driving back from the airport, where he’d seen Pepper off. He’d been thinking about the objectively terrible job he was doing as her boyfriend.

Tony dropped the rake back into the sandbox. “Guilt,” he said. “They happen when I’m feeling guilty.”

“Do you feel guilty about the ambush?” Samson asked.

There was a question Tony didn’t have to think about. “Yes. Of course I do.”

“What about it makes you feel guilty?”

 _Sarcasm is not helpful. Sarcasm is not helpful._ “Well, you know, after I personally set the explosion, shot up the convoy, and kidnapped myself, it seemed indicated.”

Samson raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

“Not working for you?” Tony said. “I don’t blame you. Not my best effort. Let’s try sincerity, then.” He paused, just a moment, to prepare a sufficiently flippant voice with which to tell the truth. “We were ambushed by my weapons. The three kids who were protecting me were killed by my weapons.”

“Did you know the weapons were going to the Ten Rings?”

“No, but I didn’t look very hard, either,” Tony said. “And I knew they were going to kill _someone_. It’s not like I was making Nerf guns.”

Samson clasped his hands on his lap. He was going into his “misty old philosopher” mode: asking mile-long lists of questions without providing a single answer. 

“What about now?” Samson asked. “Do you look to see where the weapons you make go now?”

“I don’t know if you’ve watched the news recently, but I don’t make weapons, these days,” Tony said. “Not unless I know damn well who’s using them, and for what. I certainly don’t make them for the U.S. government. Or terrorist cells.”

“Why did you change your behavior in that regard?”

Tony leaned back in Samson’s faux-leather rolling desk chair. He kicked off against the leg of the desk and let the chair swivel back and forth, changing direction whenever he hit the other side of the desk. “Because I saw the effects of what I’d been doing.”

“And because you felt bad about them?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have stopped if I’d felt good about them.”

“So your guilt served a purpose?” Samson said.

“Not how I would have phrased it, but yes,” Tony said. “It did.”

“What purpose does your guilt serve now?” Samson asked.

That one was difficult. Tony let his chair stop moving while he thought. “It keeps me doing what I do,” he said. “You know. Being a superhero.”

“So you don’t enjoy being Iron Man?”

Enjoy it? He _lived_ for it. “No, I definitely enjoy being Iron Man,” Tony said.

“Then you don’t find the results of your work satisfying?”

“You mean saving the world?” Tony said. “No, I find that extremely satisfying.”

“So if you woke up tomorrow morning and didn’t feel guilty about the weapons you used to make, you would stop being Iron Man? Even though you enjoy it and find it satisfying?”

“No,” Tony said. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

“So your guilt isn’t keeping you doing your job?”

“No.”

“Then what purpose does it serve?”

Tony threw his hands in the air in a “who knows?” gesture. “I guess it’s purposeless.”

Samson unclasped his hands. They must have reached the point of all the questions.

“The next time you feel guilty about something, I want you to ask yourself a few questions,” Samson said. “Answer them out loud, if you’re alone, or very clearly in your head, if you’re not. Ask yourself, ‘Which of my behaviors contributed to the matter I feel guilty about? If any of them do, have I changed or am I in the process of changing that behavior? If I haven’t, what can I do to change that behavior?’”

“Kind of a mouthful,” Tony said. “Want to write that down for me?”

* * *

Three days later, tinkering with his spare arc reactor in his workshop, Tony dropped a wire onto the ground. He thought of Yinsen – “steady hands” – and a wave of guilt crashed down on him.

“What was it?” he said. “’Which of my behaviors contributed to the matter I feel guilty about?’”

He dropped into the chair behind his workbench. Which of his behaviors had contributed to Yinsen’s death? He was tempted to say his self-centeredness. If he’d asked Yinsen more questions, if he’d paid more attention, maybe he’d have seen what Yinsen was going to do. But he _had_ asked Yinsen questions, hadn’t he? Yinsen had lied. That had been his choice.

“None of them,” he said out loud.

Well, how about that?

* * *

The next day, Tony skyped Pepper.

“Tony!” Pepper said. She looked beautiful, even on a computer screen. She also looked worried, even on a computer screen. Little tension lines wrinkled her forehead. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

“I just called to say hi,” Tony said. “How are you?”

Pepper’s forehead smoothed out. She blinked for a moment or two, presumably in astonishment. _I am changing my behavior_ , Tony thought.

“I’m great,” Pepper said.

* * *

One night, Tony was in the living room, working out designs on his laptop. He was facing the door, but he was also focused on what he was doing, so Rogers’ entrance startled him. He jumped up, sending his laptop crashing to the floor.

“Sorry,” Rogers said.

“Going to send me to another therapist?” Tony snapped. Panic loosened his tongue and made him meaner than normal. He breathed in through his nose, trying to get his heartbeat to calm down.

“I think one’s probably enough,” Rogers said. “I’ll just let you have this room, then.”

And he turned around and left.

Tony should probably have asked himself his fucking guilt questions, but he ignored it instead, and checked to see if his computer was okay.

* * *

Shockingly enough, life went on. Tony came up with diabolical new inventions in the basement; Thor said weird, innocently inappropriate things; Rogers made references nobody got; Natasha kicked everyone’s ass in training. They all saved the world a lot. Same old, same old.

Six weeks into therapy, Tony slept through the night for the first time in months.

* * *

“I want to work on a specific trigger,” Tony said at the beginning of a session a few weeks later. “Is there a way to do that?”

Samson nodded and set his clipboard down on the coffee table. They were back at their seats from the first session, with Samson in the leather chair. “There are. EMDR is one option that would be particularly well suited.”

“Well, let’s do EMDR, then,” Tony said. “Finger-waving and eye-rolling. Sounds like high school.”

Samson laughed. “I guess it does. Which trigger did you want to work on?”

“Water,” Tony said.

“All right. Before we begin, I want to warn you that, like any exposure therapy, EMDR can be unpleasant. Extremely unpleasant, in some cases. You can stop at any time, or you can try one of the stress management techniques we’ve talked about.”

“Consider me warned,” Tony said. He held out both of his hands in a come-hither gesture. “Bring it.”

“First, you need an image to focus on. What does water make you remember?”

Tony repressed an urge to clench his hands into fists. “Having my head forced into a pool of it.” Red at the edges of his vision, pressure building unbearably in his lungs, water slipping through his lips, that last moment when, against his will, he opened his mouth and _breathed_ … and being pulled out long enough for one breath of air, just one, before it started again. And again. And again.

“Do you have an image for that?” Samson asked.

“Yes,” Tony said. He ground his teeth.

“What does the image make you feel?”

“Fear,” Tony said, giving up and balling his hands into fists. “Pain. Helplessness.”

Samson stayed very still. “On a scale of zero to ten, where zero is completely neutral and ten is the worst distress you can imagine, how much distress does the image cause you?”

“I don’t imagine distress is finite,” Tony said, more maliciously than he might have normally.

“How about where ten is a severe panic attack?”

“How incredibly scientific.”

Samson gave him a look equivalent to saying his name in an exasperated voice. “Make a guess, Tony. It’s not about exact numbers.”

Tony guessed nine, inching up to a ten any moment now. His teeth were clenched now, too. “ _Seven_ ,” he said.

If Samson guessed he was soft-pedaling – which he probably did – he didn’t say anything.

“Where in your body do you feel the fear and pain and helplessness?” he asked.

Tony took a deep breath through his nose and considered. “My stomach,” he said. “And the back of my neck.”

“What does the image make you feel about yourself?” Samson asked.

Tony was beginning to regret agreeing to this, but he wasn’t backing out now that he’d started. “It makes me feel like I’m not worth much,” he said, with as much anger as he could. Anger was much, much safer than whatever else might have made its way into his voice.

“What do you think would be a better way to feel?” Samson asked.

“ _Not_ that,” Tony said.

Samson nodded. “Okay. I’m going to start moving my finger back and forth. Follow it with your eyes, and while you do that, think about the image and the way it makes you feel. Just focus on that and see what happens.”

“Okay,” Tony said.

Samson began to wave his finger back and forth across Tony’s field of vision, like a hypnotist’s watch. Back and forth. Back and forth. Tony thought about water in his lungs. About rubbing his wrists raw against the rope binding them. About the moment, every time, when he was sure that this time, they’d leave him under too long. About struggling against the slippery weight of a man’s hand on the back of his neck.

“Okay,” Samson said after a time that felt long, but was probably less than a minute. He took his finger out of the air. “You can stop now.”

Tony blew out a breath. He’d been holding it. He wasn’t supposed to do that.

“Now, let your mind go blank. Don’t try to think about anything in particular. Just tell me what comes to mind.”

This was simultaneously the most painful and most ridiculously New-Agey thing Tony had ever willingly subjected himself to. “I guess I’m thinking about how little I could do. You know, all the ways…”

A disturbingly clear image flashed in front of his eyes. It wasn’t exactly a flashback, but it was kind of _like_ one. “ _Everything_ that comes to mind?” Tony asked.

“Yes.”

“I just saw Obie. Obadiah. Stane. You know who he was?”

“I do,” Samson said.

“I just saw him, the way he looked when he took the arc reactor out of my chest. He put his arm around my neck. He practically raised me.” Tony’s nails dug into his palms.

“What does that image make you feel?”

“Helplessness,” Tony said. “Betrayal.”

“Where in your body do you feel that?” Samson asked.

This time, Tony didn’t have to consider. “My chest,” he said. Before Samson could ask, he volunteered, “It makes me feel like I can’t trust anyone. I’d call it a seven, too.”

“Why don’t we try this again, with you focusing on that image and those feelings?” Samson said. Tony nodded, and they took up the finger-waving and eye-rolling one more time.

Tony thought about the grin on Obadiah’s face, looming over his. About the painful pressure in his chest as he went into cardiac arrest. About the sick realization that Obadiah wasn’t just upset, wasn’t just misguided, that Obadiah wanted him _dead_. It was kind of against the rules, but he thought about the day he’d taken over Stark Industries, when Obadiah had given him a cigar and a pat on the back and said, “It’s your ballgame now, kid.”

His hands hurt. He spread them out over his knees and gripped those instead.

When Samson put down his hand and asked him what he was thinking, Tony was ready. “If Obadiah could turn on me like that, anyone can,” he said. “And if I can’t trust anyone to help me, and I can’t help myself, what fucking chance do I have?”

“Okay. Try something for me,” Samson said. “We’re going to do this again. This time, think about the image with Obadiah, and specifically think about _help_.”

Finger up. Tony thought about the leather of the sofa growing damp with his sweat. The moment all his energy deserted him, and he crashed against his desk. The sharp, shining lines of glass shards on the floor. Waking up to Rhodey’s wide-eyed face. Tony’s breath hitched unexpectedly.

“What are you thinking?” Samson asked.

“Rhodey came to get me,” Tony said. “And Pepper, she gave me the spare arc reactor that saved my life. After I told her to throw the original out, she sort of wrapped it up and gave it to me as a gift, and that’s why I didn’t die of heart failure. Because it was there.”

“How would you rate the distress about the image of Obadiah now?” Samson asked.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult to think about. “A five,” Tony said. A real five.

“What changed?”

“People helped me,” Tony said, his voice monotone but sincere. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone so long without saying something sarcastic. Maybe he was just too fucking tense to pull it off right now.

“Let’s go back to the first image, the one about the water,” Samson said. “Let’s do the same thing. Think about it, and think about help.”

Finger up. Tony’s eyes ached with the strain of following it.

The taste of mold and dirt. Wet, hacking gasps echoing in the dark. Struggling wildly against the spots in his vision, against the hands holding him down, against the growing desire to give in.

 _Help_.

The spark of an idea. Yinsen’s calm, even accent. Steady hands. Vibrations running up his arms as he hammered on an anvil. Steam hissing off hot metal.

As soon as Samson’s finger stopped moving, Tony spoke. “I helped myself,” he said. His shoulders were hunched in a painfully sustained shrug. He couldn’t look at Samson. Instead, he focused on the grain of the wood in the coffee table. It was the only way he could say something this fucking true. “I made a fucking arc reactor in a cave. Also a flying robot suit.” A thought occurred to him. “I helped myself with Obadiah, too. I dragged myself downstairs while I was in _fucking cardiac arrest_.”

“ _Yeah_ , you did,” Samson said, like an impressed high school kid. Tony glanced up and met his eyes.

They both started laughing at the same moment, and it took them a long time to stop. When they did, Tony’s shoulders had relaxed into their resting position, and he’d settled back into his seat. He felt like himself again, or the version of himself he was becoming. Who fucking knew?

“How distressing would you say the water image is now?” Samson asked, wiping tears out of his eyes.

“Three,” Tony said. “Maybe a two, even. It’s very unscientific, of course.”

“Of course,” Samson agreed. “So when you think about Obadiah and the water, now, what do you think about?”

“I don’t know. Some of the same. But also…” Rhodey. Yinsen. Pepper. “The people who helped me.”

“So people do want to help you?”

“I guess,” Tony said. It didn’t feel completely true. “I mean, I’m pretty sure.”

“And you can help yourself?”

That one was more definite. “Yes. I can.”

Samson leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So this time, when you think about the water image, think about that, too. Think, ‘I can help myself, and there are people who want to help me.’”

So that’s what he did. Three more times, that session, Samson waved his finger, and Tony rolled his eyes, and when Samson asked for a number, Tony gave him a number.

And damn if they didn’t get that little fucker down to zero.

* * *

That night, Tony drew himself a bath. It wasn’t completely relaxing, but he didn’t have anything even _resembling_ a panic attack or a flashback. And it did kind of help the massive headache he’d gotten from moving his eyes so much.

* * *

Tony found Rogers in the gym, working the punching bag. He stopped when he saw Tony approach, steadying the bag with one hand.

“Hey,” Rogers said.

“Hey.” Tony eyed the door and edged so that he could face both it and Rogers. Old habits, etc.

“What, is there a meeting?” Rogers asked, after five seconds during which no one spoke.

“No,” Tony said. He coughed. “I, uh, wanted to thank you.”

Rogers wrapped one hand around the chain holding the punching bag up and leaned against it so that it held half his weight. “What for?”

“That can’t be good for the bag, you know,” Tony said. “I could report you for damaging equipment. They might fire you, and then who would they put in the news reels before _Casablanca_?”

“ _Stark_. What for?”

“Thank you,” Tony said. “For helping me.”

Rogers looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “You’re welcome.” He straightened up, set the bag swinging with one last punch, and walked off toward the door.

“You could have been less of a do-gooder prick about it, though!” Tony shouted after him, loud enough for the whole house to hear.

Without turning around, Rogers tossed him a jaunty wave and disappeared through the doorway.

Tony leaned back against the wall, staring at the doorway. He and Samson had started talking about what Tony would do when he was done with therapy. It would probably be a few months before that happened, but still: _done with therapy_.

For the first time in a long time, Tony could see the future, and it was fucking glorious.

**Author's Note:**

> Really long thoughts on the medical/clinical aspects of the fic: 
> 
> First off, you can read the DSM-IV definition of PTSD [here](http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/pages/dsm-iv-tr-ptsd.asp). There are also some very clear and unflinching personal descriptions of the illness online. If you're interested, I recommend [Rachel M. Brown's series on the subject](http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/541123.html), which includes recommendations for further reading.
> 
> Second, medication. Tony's thoughts on medication should be taken with a grain of salt. Or a salt shaker full of them, really. The choice to medicate or not is a personal one that's really up to an individual and his or her psychiatrist. Tony's reaction is not intended as an indictment of psychiatric medication; it's just what I considered an in-character reaction to be.
> 
> Cognitive behavioral therapy is a standard treatment for a wide range of issues. You can read an overview of it [here](http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/MY00194).
> 
> Finally, EMDR is an extremely divisive form of therapy. There is a not insignificant subset of psychiatric experts who are highly skeptical of it. On the other hand, literally every personal account I've found from a person who's undergone it has been positive. In the end, I decided to use it because [the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense recommend it as a form of therapy which yields significant benifits](http://www.healthquality.va.gov/ptsd/ptsd_full.pdf). You can read about what EMDR entails [here](http://www.emdr.com/general-information/what-is-emdr/what-is-emdr.html). A good overview of the arguments for EMDR can be found [here](http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/the-evidence-on-e-m-d-r/). A good overview of the opposition can be found [here](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=emdr-taking-a-closer-look). It should be noted that the EMDR presented in the fic does not strictly follow clinical guidelines.


End file.
